Blinking Light on radio panel

There is a blinking red light in the lower right hand corner of the radio panel of my "97 528i. It is just to the right of the button that has a small clock face on it that I push when I want to set the clock. I looked in my owners manuals for both the car and the radio which said it had something to do with circulating the heat when the car was stopped.

I took it to my local dealer here in Berkeley, CA and a Service Manager tried to turn it off and was not successful. He suggested ignoring the problem. He also said some of the cars came with this heat circulation feature but mine is not one of them.

Two questions:

Do you know of a way to turn the light off?

Is there any connection with the light being on and the fact that my air
conditioning is not functioning. Are they inter related in any way?